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John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore (ca. 1730–1809)

John Murray, fourth earl of
Dunmore, was Virginia's last royal governor. Dunmore, a member of the House of Lords, reluctantly
assumed the office in 1771, not wanting to relinquish his position as governor of New
York. He won support by asserting Virginia's land claims west of the Allegheny
Mountains, but his impulsive nature alienated key politicians, and the lack of
instructions from London hindered his ability to govern. Dunmore received a last
measure of popularity in October 1774 when he led volunteers in a defeat of Indians at Point Pleasant on
the state's western frontier, later known as Dunmore's War. Tensions between the colony and Great Britain
increased rapidly, causing him to remove gunpowder from the public magazine in Williamsburg in April 1775. This
action caused his authority to unravel, and he fled to Hampton Roads in June. On November 7 Dunmore declared
martial law and offered to free any runaway slaves who supported royal authority. His troops lost the Battle of Great Bridge on
December 9 and his fleet shelled Norfolk early in 1776. He left for Great Britain later in the year, where
he supported the interests of Loyalist
Virginians. In 1787 Dunmore became governor of the Bahamas, during which
time he fell from royal favor. He died at his home in England in 1809. MORE...

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Early Years

Murray was born around 1730 probably at
Taymount, the estate of his parents, William Murray and Catherine Nairne Murray,
in Perthshire, Scotland. He served as a page to Charles Edward Stuart (often
called Bonnie Prince Charlie) during the Jacobite rising of 1745–1746, in which
his father also took part, but by 1750 he had nevertheless received a commission
as an officer in the 3rd Foot Guards, of which his loyal uncle, the second earl of
Dunmore, served as colonel. As a captain, Murray took part in raids on the coast
of France during the Seven Years' War (1754–1763). He left active military service
in 1758 and resigned his commission about two years later. His father succeeded to
the earldom in 1752 and died in December 1756, at which time Murray became the
fourth earl of Dunmore. On February 21, 1759, he married Lady Charlotte Stewart,
daughter of the sixth earl of Galloway. They had five sons and at least five
daughters.

Originally connected in politics with William Petty-Fitzmaurice, second earl of
Shelburne and later first marquess of Lansdowne, Dunmore sat in the House of Lords
as a Scottish representative peer from 1761 to 1774 and again from 1776 to 1790.
During the 1760s, his voting record on American affairs was a moderate one. By the
end of the decade, family connections had brought Dunmore into the political orbit
of Granville Leveson-Gower, second earl Gower, a leader of the group known as the
Bedford Whigs, who took a hard line toward colonial protestors. By then, Dunmore
had serious financial problems. He may have made some unwise investments, and he
purchased an estate in Stirlingshire and erected a singular summerhouse there,
called Pineapple, that featured an outsized representation in stone of a pineapple
set on a Palladian pavilion. Dunmore sought a royal appointment with a salary to
alleviate his difficulties. Gower was probably responsible for his being appointed
governor of New York early in 1770.

Dunmore sailed for New York and took office in
October of that year. He quickly became involved in an unseemly salary dispute
with the lieutenant governor, who had governed before his arrival. Dunmore liked
New York and set about securing a large grant of land in the colony, but Gower
arranged for him to be promoted to governor of Virginia on January 19, 1771.
Dunmore was not pleased and unsuccessfully sought permission to remain in New York
because, he argued, Virginia's warmer and less-healthy climate would preclude his
family from joining him. He finally moved to Virginia and took office on September
25, 1771. His wife and children, who had remained in Great Britain, arrived in
Williamsburg in February 1774. Word of Dunmore's reluctance to serve in Virginia
reached Williamsburg before he did and led some influential Virginians to form an
unfavorable impression of him and to contrast him harshly with his courtly
predecessor as governor, Norborne Berkeley, baron de Botetourt.

Governor of Virginia

Dunmore made an effort to identify himself
with the colony. He purchased a plantation in York County and slaves to work it and at the governor's palace. Dunmore
named a daughter, born in December 1774, Virginia, and he enrolled three of his
sons in the College of William
and Mary. He also vigorously pressed the colony's claim to the area
around Pittsburgh, which because of uncertainty about the location of the boundary
both Virginia and Pennsylvania claimed. Dunmore also joined influential Virginians
in the rush for western
land. Interpreting his royal instructions very broadly, he made grants to
Virginia veterans of the Seven Years' War that lay west of the Proclamation Line
of 1763. In March and April 1772 the General Assembly named a new county in the
Shenandoah Valley for
him and a new county in the southwest for his eldest son, the viscount
Fincastle.

Dunmore's good intentions did not always bear good fruit. He had an impulsive
nature and sometimes overreached, characteristics that may have contributed to his
financial difficulties in the 1760s. In Virginia, Dunmore competed with and
alienated some influential land speculators, and he annoyed the king's ministers
with his acquisitiveness. Rumors of philandering before his wife reached
Williamsburg also dampened his political influence, and, after the break with
Great Britain became unavoidable, some colonists employed those rumors to
discredit his administration and the royal government that had appointed him. That
Dunmore had to govern with no explicit instructions from London for several months
at a time as the crisis of the American Revolution (1775–1783) approached
made his task almost impossible, but he also made matters more difficult for
himself.

Dunmore dutifully dissolved the General
Assembly in May 1774 after it protested Parliament's Coercive, or Intolerable,
Acts, but he was unable to prevent the first of the five Revolutionary
Conventions from assembling in August and electing delegates to the First Continental
Congress. In the summer of 1774 Dunmore's attention was fixed on the
West. He sent an agent, John
Connolly, to occupy Fort Pitt, which he renamed Fort Dunmore. Because the
colony's militia law had not been renewed before the assembly was dissolved,
Dunmore had to ask for volunteers to march to the frontier to protect settlers
there from Indian raids. In the resultant conflict, known later as Dunmore's War,
Virginians defeated Indians at Point Pleasant in October before the force that
Dunmore commanded reached the area. He then negotiated a treaty with Cornstalk,
leader of the Shawnee, to protect the western settlers.

When Dunmore returned to Williamsburg in December 1774 he received a shower of
congratulations, but his popularity was short-lived. The crisis between the
colonies and Great Britain grew more serious, and in March 1775 he was unable to
prevent the second
of the Revolutionary Conventions from electing delegates to the Second Continental
Congress and from voting to put the colony in a posture of defense.
Citing rumors of an impending slave rebellion, Dunmore removed gunpowder from the
public magazine in Williamsburg in April, an action that triggered a rapid
deterioration in his relations with Virginia's other political leaders. He sent
his family back to Britain, fled Williamsburg early in June, and tried to gather
Loyalist supporters in Hampton Roads. His pleas for reinforcements brought only a
small force of British regulars. Dunmore sent Connolly back to Fort Dunmore to
recruit western Loyalists and Indians, but Connolly was captured en route, which
exposed Dunmore's plans and further discredited him.

On November 7, 1775, Dunmore proclaimed
martial law and offered freedom to slaves who escaped from supporters of the
resistance and agreed to fight for the king. He recruited the Queen's Own Loyal Virginia
Regiment, composed of white Loyalists, and Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment,
which had white Loyalist officers. Dunmore did not free his own slaves. His offer
of freedom to slaves to fight against white Virginians and his recruitment of a
regiment of black soldiers alienated most of the remaining influential planters
and political leaders who until then had stayed loyal to the Crown.

Dunmore ordered a strike against a Virginia regiment at Great Bridge, near
Norfolk, on December 9, 1775, but his force was decisively defeated. On January 1,
1776, his warships fired on Norfolk. Dunmore ordered his men to set fire to the
warehouses on the wharves. Virginia and North Carolina soldiers who had occupied
the town burned most of the other buildings, for which Dunmore was blamed. He
abandoned his base near Norfolk and in May moved to Gwynn's Island in what later
became Mathews County, where
smallpox and other diseases ravaged his forces and took a particularly heavy toll
on the Ethiopian Regiment. By August 1776 Dunmore had realized that he would not
receive reinforcements. He sailed for New York, where he briefly served as a
volunteer during military action on Long Island. He returned to Great Britain
later in the year but remained Virginia's royal governor and drew his salary until
the end of the war. After Dunmore's departure, the General Assembly in 1776
divided Fincastle County into three counties and eliminated its name and in
October 1777 renamed Dunmore County as Shanando (later Shenandoah) County.

Later Years

At the end of 1776 Dunmore resumed his seat in
the House of Lords. He staunchly supported the war and, in one of his rare
speeches, in 1777 defended using Indians to fight against the Americans. When
British forces returned to Virginia in 1781, Dunmore and a contingent of Loyalist
refugees from Virginia tried to go back as well in hopes of restoring the royal
government, but the British surrender at Yorktown in October diverted his expedition to
Charleston, South Carolina. There, he developed schemes for continuing the war
with Loyalist volunteers and advocated raising more black troops. After Dunmore
returned again to Great Britain, he pressed for the further prosecution of the
war, and he voted against the peace preliminaries in 1783.

After the war, Dunmore devoted himself to the interests of Loyalist Virginians.
With former attorney general John Randolph, he pressed Virginians' claims before the American Loyalist
Claims Commission, which oversaw the reimbursement of Loyalists for their
property losses. Dunmore himself filed a claim for £35,723, £15,000 of which he
had already received from the government in 1776 for personal losses.

In 1787 Dunmore became governor of the
Bahamas. His controversial tenure lasted until 1796, by which time Gower, his
chief patron and by then marquess of Stafford, had resigned from the ministry, and
one of Dunmore's daughters had attracted royal disfavor through an illegal
morganatic marriage to one of George III's younger sons. Dunmore died on February 25, 1809, at his
retirement home in Ramsgate, Kent, England, and was buried at the Church of Saint
Laurence, Thanet, there. Later in the nineteenth century his body, along with the
remains of his wife and one of their daughters, were deposited in a mausoleum at
the church.

Time Line

1730
- John Murray is born probably at Taymount, the estate of his parents, William Murray and Catherine Nairne Murray, in Perthshire, Scotland.

1745–1746
- John Murray serves as a page to Charles Edward Stuart (often called Bonnie Prince Charlie) during the Jacobite rising.

By 1750
- John Murray receives a commission as an officer in the 3rd Foot Guards, of which his loyal uncle, the second earl of Dunmore, served as a colonel.

1752
- William Murray, father of John Murray, becomes the third earl of Dunmore.

1754–1763
- John Murray serves as a captain in raids on the coast of France during the Seven Years' War.

1758
- John Murray leaves active military service.

1758
- William Murray, third earl of Dunmore, dies, at which time his son John Murray becomes the fourth earl of Dunmore.

February 21, 1759
- John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, marries Lady Charlotte Stewart, daughter of the six earl of Galloway. They will have five sons and at least five daughters.

1760
- John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, resigns his commission in the military.

1760s
- John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, has a moderate voting record on American affairs while sitting in the House of Lords as a Scottish representative peer in the House of Lords.

Late 1760s
- Family connections have brought John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, into the political orbit of Granville Leveson-Gower, second earl of Gower, a leader of the group known as the Bedford Whigs, who take a hard line toward colonial protestors.

Late 1760s
- John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, seeks a royal appointment with a salary to alleviate his financial difficulties, which may have resulted from unwise investments.

1761–1774
- John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, sits in the House of Lords as a Scottish representative peer.

Early 1770
- John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, is appointed governor of New York.

October 1770
- Governor John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, takes office of governor of New York.

January 19, 1771
- After three months as governor of New York, John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, reluctantly becomes governor of Virginia. He will unsuccessfully seek permission to remain in New York.

September 25, 1771
- John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, reluctantly moves to Virginia and takes office as governor.

February 1774
- The family of John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, arrive in Williamsburg where Murray is serving as governor of Virginia.

May 1774
- Governor John Murray, earl of Dunmore, dissolves the General Assembly. The House of Burgesses continues to meet on its own.

October 1774
- Virginians defeat Indians at Point Pleasant in a conflict later known as Dunmore’s War.

December 1774
- After negotiating a treaty with Cornstalk, leader of the Shawnee Indians, following a conflict later known as Dunmore’s War, Governor John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, returns to Williamsburg and receives a shower of congratulations.

December 1774
- Governor John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, names a daughter Virginia in an effort to identify himself with the colony.

March 1775
- As the crisis between the colonies and Great Britain grows more serious, Governor John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, is unable to prevent the second of the Revolutionary Conventions from electing delegates to the Second Continental Congress and from voting to put the colony in a posture of defense.

April 21, 1775
- Governor John Murray, earl of Dunmore, dispatches a company of marines to seize the colony's munitions from the public magazine in Williamsburg.

Early June 1775
- Governor John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, flees Williamsburg and tries to gather Loyalist supporters in Hampton Roads, which will only bring a small force of British regulars.

November 7, 1775
- Governor John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, issues a proclamation that declares martial law and promises freedom to all slaves and indentured servants willing to fight for the British.

December 9, 1775
- Governor John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, orders a strike against a Virginia regiment at Great Bridge, near Norfolk. The strike will be unsuccessful.

Late 1776
- John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, returns to Great Britain but remains Virginia’s royal governor and drew his salary until the end of the war.

Late 1776
- Following Governor John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore’s departure from Virginia, the General Assembly in 1776 divides Fincastle County into three counties and eliminates its name.

Late 1776
- John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore resumes his seat in the House of Lords where he staunchly supports the war.

1776–1790
- John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, sits in the House of Lords as a Scottish representative peer.

January 1, 1776
- British forces fire on Norfolk. Governor John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, orders his men to set fire to the warehouses on the wharves.

May 1776
- Governor John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, moves British forces from Norfolk to Gwynn’s Island in what later will become Mathews County, where smallpox and other diseases ravage his forces and take a particularly heavy toll on the Ethiopian Regiment.

By August 1776
- Governor John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, realizes he will not receive reinforcements and sails for New York, where he will briefly serve as a volunteer during military action on Long Island.

1777
- In a rare speech in the House of Lords, John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, defends using Indians to fight against the Americans.

October 1777
- The General Assembly renames Dunmore County as Shanado (later Shenandoah) County.

1781
- British forces return to Virginia. John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, and a contingent of Loyalist refugees from Virginia try to go back as well in hopes of restoring the royal government.

October 1781
- The British surrender at Yorktown diverts John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore's expedition of loyalists to Charleston, South Carolina, where he unsuccessfully develops schemes for continuing the war with Loyalist volunteers and advocates raising more black troops.

1783
- In the House of Lords, John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, presses for further prosecution of the war and votes against peace preliminaries.

After 1783
- With John Randolph, John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, presses Virginians' claims before the American Loyalist Claims Commission, which oversees the reimbursement of Loyalists for their property losses. Murray himself files a claim for £35,723, £15,000 of which he already received from the government in 1776 for personal losses.

1787–1796
- John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, serves as governor of the Bahamas.

February 25, 1809
- John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, dies at his retirement home in Ramsgate, Kent, England, and is buried at the Church of Saint Laurence, Thanet, England.

Categories

References

Further Reading

David, James Corbett. Dunmore's New World: The Extraordinary
Life of a Royal Governor in Revolutionary America, with Jacobites,
Counterfeiters, Land Schemes, Shipwrecks, Scalping, Indian Politics, Runaway
Slaves, and Two Illegal Royal Weddings. Charlottesville: University of
Virginia Press, 2013.

Gilbert, Alan. Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for
Emancipation in the War for Independence. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2012.

Holton, Woody. Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and
the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia. Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1999.

Holton, Woody. "'Rebel against Rebel': Enslaved Virginians and the Coming of
the American Revolution." Virginia Magazine of History and
Biography 105, no. 2 (1997): 157–192.

Lowe, William C. "The Parliamentary Career of Lord Dunmore, 1761–1774." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 96 (1988):
3–30.